Dark Powers

by Raymond Haigh

  Samantha squeezed the trigger. The sound of the exploding cartridge was loud in the summer-morning stillness and there was frantic beating of wings as birds took flight from the hedgerows. She knelt beside the man’s body, emptied his pockets, then returned through the gap in the hedge. Annushka fixed her in a cold, unblinking stare. Her body was shaking, her mouth curved down in a display of disgust and loathing. Samantha didn’t speak, just took her arm, led her back to their car and settled her in the passenger seat. The road was still deserted. She ran back up the hill, searched the body of the man lying on the tarmac, then returned to Annushka and slid behind the wheel. Minutes later they were driving down the slip road that fed into the motorway.

  ‘Did you have to kill that man?’

  Samantha studied the girl. Eyes bleak, she was staring through the windscreen towards the entrance to the street where her friend, Rebecca, had her home. After spending the afternoon in Cheltenham, they’d parked in front of a terrace of tall Regency houses that were separated from the main road by a broad area of grass. She said softly, ‘Didn’t you hear him admitting he’d been sent to kill you?’

  Annushka nodded.

  ‘If I’d spared his life he’d have contacted Milosovitch, more men would have been sent, and they’d have been even more vicious and determined because they had a score to settle. Killing him has kept us safe for a while.’

  The girl’s face was pale and still, almost mask-like. Over the course of the afternoon, resignation and despair seemed to have settled over her, displacing her fear. Presently she said, ‘Babushka’s mother, my great grandmother, was raped and beaten and left for dead during the Second Great War. She used to tell Babushka that it was a time when the souls of men were ruled by dark powers. I think that time is still with us.’ Annushka turned and fixed Samantha in a chilling stare. ‘I know I am going to die. Those men didn’t kill me, but others that follow them will.’

  ‘You’re not going to die. I won’t let it happen.’

  ‘How will you prevent it? First they send Grigori, and you kill him. Then they send four more men for you to kill. Next time they will send a regiment of men, you will be overwhelmed and we will both die.’

  ‘I promise you, no matter what it takes, I’m going to protect you. Stay close to me, and when I have to leave you, do as I say and you’ll be safe. If you hadn’t left the car back there the men would never have seen you.’

  ‘You were gone a long time. I was frightened. As I waited I became more frightened, so I came looking for you.’ She returned her gaze to the opening into Orchard Street. ‘And why did we have to park over here? Why couldn’t we just wait outside the house?’

  ‘There may still be someone following us and watching us. We don’t want to lead them to the mobile phones.’ Samantha glanced up and down the service road that fronted the Regency terrace. There were only three other cars parked there. They were all empty. There was no one standing or loitering, just the steady flow of traffic along London Road, the occasional pedestrian heading home from work or walking into Cheltenham. She switched on the car’s sat-nav and studied the network of nearby streets. The junction they were watching was the only way into Orchard Street.

  ‘I think she’s here,’ Annushka announced.

  Samantha glanced up.

  ‘The dark-haired girl with the supermarket carrier bags: that’s Rebecca.’

  They watched her walk past the massive trunks of trees that took up most of the opposite pavement, suit jacket over her arm, her breasts filling a white silk blouse, her hips shaping a black skirt. She turned into Orchard Street.

  ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘Give her a couple of minutes; let her get inside the house and put her shopping down.’ Samantha checked her reflection in the rear-view mirror, teased a few wayward strands of blonde hair back in place. Wearing the wig didn’t irritate her quite so much now, especially in the air-conditioned coolness of the car. She took the tinted spectacles with the small round lenses from her bag and put them on. Annushka’s friend, Rebecca, was going to get a good look at her. It was best that she should remember only blonde hair and quaint glasses.

  ‘There’s blood on your dress,’ Annushka said. ‘Just a speck, on the hem.’

  Samantha glanced down. ‘So there is. Nothing I can do about it now.’ She pushed the door open. ‘Let’s go. The sooner we have the phones, the sooner I can bring this wretched business to an end.’

  ‘When I introduce you, who shall I say you are?’

  ‘Tell her I’m a friend from Moscow.’

  There was a loud knock. Marcus Soames glanced up from his paper-strewn desk, watched the door open, saw Loretta Fallon enter and approach across drab brown carpet. She settled herself in the visitor’s chair and dropped her briefcase by her feet. He smiled. ‘How did the meeting go, ma’am?’

  ‘Pretty much as I expected.’ Loretta crossed her legs, arranged the hem of her navy-blue skirt around her knees. ‘The PM’s passed the search for the Dvoskin girl over to Dillon; told him to treat it as a terrorism problem. Home Secretary questioned the legality of what they were doing. He was quite agitated.’

  ‘I thought they might bang on about the Belgravia fiasco.’

  ‘PM mentioned it, but he wasn’t over-critical. I think he was glad to have an excuse to pass the search for the girl over to the Met.’ She frowned and her voice became urgent. ‘Keep up the surveillance, Marcus: phone traffic, faxes, everything. We need to know what they’re doing.’

  One of three phones began to ring. He snatched it up, listened, then said, ‘Thanks for keeping me informed. Call me as soon as you have more information.’ He replaced the handset and looked at Loretta. ‘Four men found dead along an isolated country road about ten miles from Malmesbury. Three of them had been shot through the head, the fourth run over by a car. They haven’t been identified.’

  They eyed one another across the untidy desk. He’s beginning to look his age, Loretta reflected. The dark and curly hair was flecked with grey, the features had softened, become more than a little florid. But those wickedly blue eyes were still bright and alert, his posture erect; he was still very much the Guards Officer who used to ride with the Queen’s Household Cavalry. She said, ‘That list of mobile phone numbers they gave us; did the researchers check the owners’ names?’

  Marcus sifted through the papers on his desk, plucked out a sheet and passed it over.

  Loretta glanced down at it. ‘No princes or princesses of the House of Windsor, then?’

  ‘Apparently not, ma’am. The Queen’s secretary was being cautious when he asked her Lord Lieutenant to intervene; perhaps he thought there was just a chance Prince Harry might be there. Seems he was on a flight to New Zealand: goodwill visit, countering the threat of another referendum.’

  ‘But Viscounts Farnbeck and Barksdale are listed,’ Loretta went on, ‘and the son of the fourth Baron Pelgrove, the grand-daughter of one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, a nephew of the Prime Minister, a daughter of a High Court judge, the son of the chairman of a major bank. And the dead girl was an MP’s daughter. There may have been no princes, but it was still a gathering of the children of the elite.’ She handed the list back to Marcus. ‘I told the PM about Fairchild’s liaison with the Dvoskin girl.’

  Blue eyes began to twinkle. ‘And?’

  ‘He was shocked; shocked and angry. I had to tell him. Would he want a man who’s having an affair with the daughter of a murdered Russian oligarch to attend a meeting of foreign ministers in Moscow?’

  ‘Hardly, ma’am, but the revelation could put the girl in even greater danger.’

  ‘I had a duty to tell him, Marcus.’

  ‘Indeed, ma’am. But having phones that hold incriminating images of the offspring of the great and the good is one thing; being the juvenile mistress of the Foreign Secretary is quite another. She could bring the government down. You said Dillon’s been told to regard her as a terrorist?’

  Loretta nodded.

 
‘Then God help the girl.’

  Rebecca Fenton gathered up magazines, wallpaper samples, a swatch of curtain fabrics, and dumped them on a coffee table. ‘Sorry about the mess in here but there’s nowhere else we can sit at the moment. The room at the front is still full of rugs and packing cases.’ She glanced at Annushka. ‘I heard about your father, on the television news. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Annushka said. ‘It was quite a shock.’

  ‘It’s got to you,’ Rebecca murmured gently. ‘I can see that.’ She picked up a mug and a plate. ‘Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee?’ She gave the woman with the pinned-up blonde hair and tinted spectacles a questioning look.

  Annushka managed a smile. ‘This is my friend, Georgina. When she heard what had happened, she flew over from Moscow to be with me.’

  ‘Pleasure to meet you, Georgina.’ Rebecca glanced from one to the other. ‘A drink: can I get you anything?’

  ‘We’re OK,’ Annushka said, ‘and we don’t have much time. I’ve really come for the mobile phones.’

  Rebecca perched on the edge of an armchair and glanced at Samantha. ‘Your friend, Georgina, she knows about the party?’

  Annushka nodded. ‘She’s helping me sort things out.’

  ‘You’re lucky they’re still here. I didn’t like having them. I’ve been thinking about smashing them up with a hammer and throwing the bits in the bin. I’ll get them for you. Won’t be a sec.’ She rose, crossed over to the door, then turned and gave Annushka a concerned look. ‘You look absolutely shattered. Sure you won’t have some tea? And it wouldn’t take me long to rustle up a few salmon and cucumber sandwiches.’

  ‘Thanks, but no.’ Annushka gave her a tired smile.

  Rebecca stepped into the passageway, then paused and looked back again. ‘What are you going to do with the phones?’

  Annushka glanced at Samantha.

  ‘Have the memories wiped professionally,’ Samantha said. ‘Everything removed. Then parcel them up and send them to the boy who organized the party. If the owners get them back they’ll be happy and we can all forget about it.’

  She speaks flawless English, Rebecca mused, every bit as good as Annushka’s. And what an incredibly husky voice; soft, not loud and actressy as husky voices sometimes are. She said: ‘You’ll make sure everything’s erased before you hand them back? I daren’t think what Mummy and Daddy would say if what’s on them ever got out. And my grandparents!’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Grandfather’s the Dean of Wetmarch. He’d have me exorcised or excommunicated or something.’

  Samantha reassured her, then asked, ‘Has anyone been in touch with you since the night of the party?’

  ‘No one. I was quite jumpy about it for a while. Every time I heard a car driving down the street, every creak of the gate, I thought someone was coming for me. I’m only just beginning to calm down.’

  Rebecca turned, pushed open a door in the panelling beneath the stairs, clicked on a light and disappeared down stone steps. Annushka settled back into the sofa and closed her eyes. Samantha heard a muffled exclamation, the sound of things being moved, feet hurrying on steps, then Rebecca appeared in the doorway.

  ‘It’s gone.’

  Annushka opened her eyes and sat up. ‘Gone?’

  ‘The box, the biscuit tin I put the phones in. It’s gone. I hid it under a stone shelf, on top of an old bucket.’

  ‘Has it fallen—’

  ‘I’ve pulled everything out from under the shelf. It’s not there.’ Rebecca moved back into the sunlit room and flopped down in an armchair.

  Samantha was watching her closely. This wasn’t an act: she was shocked all right. Concern was creeping, like a shadow, across her face as she grasped the implications.

  ‘Has anyone visited the house?’

  ‘Mummy and Daddy, when I was moving in. No one since then. If I want to socialize, I go out, and I haven’t brought anyone back. I had a bad experience. That’s why I moved here; why I’ve been wary of inviting anyone in.’

  ‘Bad experience?’

  ‘A boyfriend, at my old flat. He was helpful to me, doing jobs and things, and we lived together for a while. Eventually he became jealous and controlling and I had to tell him to leave.’

  ‘He caused trouble?’ Samantha asked.

  Rebecca shook her head. ‘I thought he would, but when he finally realized it was over, he went all silent on me and left. He never contacted me again. He was terribly upset, though.’

  ‘Do you think he might have. . . ?’

  ‘He probably doesn’t know I’ve left the flat. He certainly won’t know I’m living here.’

  ‘And no one else could have got in?’

  ‘I had the locks changed just after I did the move. All the spare keys are in the knife drawer in the kitchen.’

  ‘And you’ve never seen signs of anyone having been inside?’

  Rebecca looked down at her hands for a moment, then, in a faltering voice, began to recount events she seemed to find troubling. ‘I thought I did, just a few days ago, but the doors and windows were secure, there were no signs of any tampering, but . . .’ She frowned. ‘Something made me feel a bit scared. It’s an old house. I thought it might be haunted, by one of those poltergeist things.’ She let out an embarrassed little laugh. ‘It sounds crazy, and I feel so stupid.’

  ‘What was it that made you think the house might be haunted?’

  ‘Well, when I came home from the office one evening, I found crumbs, crumbs of brown bread, and seeds, like the ones they sometimes put in wholemeal loaves, and what looked like a dried-up splash of coffee on the drainer in the kitchen. This room’s a mess but that’s because I’m in the middle of decorating, and I’m fussy about worktops. I know I left it clean that morning, and I don’t eat brown bread.’

  ‘And the house was secure?’

  ‘Completely. The doors were locked when I came home; the windows fastened. But that’s not everything. When I went upstairs to change, the bed didn’t seem to be quite the way I’d left it. I can’t be sure about that; it’s just a feeling I had. And a couple of days later, when I was emptying the washing basket in the bathroom, I found a pair of white satin knickers that were perfectly clean. They’re things that come right up to my waist and I don’t often wear them. The last time I saw them was when I put them in the drawer in the dressing table, just after I came here.’

  ‘This man,’ Samantha said, ‘the one you told to go, did he like you to wear your big satin knickers?’

  Rebecca’s cheeks coloured. ‘I really don’t know. I suppose he must have seen me in them, but he wasn’t the kind of man to make comments about things like that. He was a bit shy and withdrawn, easily embarrassed.’

  ‘And you say he helped you with things?’

  ‘That’s right: mending kitchen cabinets, sorting out the electrics in the flat, getting my laptop working. He could fix anything. When I told him to go I think he felt I’d used him.’ She shrugged. ‘I suppose I had, a little.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Lionel. Lionel Blessed. He’s with an IT company called Sungrove Solutions. That’s how we met; his firm were installing a new system at the place where I work. It couldn’t possibly have been him, though. He’s a timid little conformer, always obeys the rules. He wouldn’t dream of trying to get into anyone’s home, and he’s no idea where I’m living now.’

  ‘Do you know where he lives?’

  ‘He has a flat in Gloucester. I never went there and I don’t have the address. I don’t even have his phone number; it was on a scrap of paper I threw away when I moved here. We used to meet almost daily at the office, then he moved in with me. We didn’t have much cause to phone one another.’

  ‘What about meter readers? Presumably the gas and electric meters are in the cellars?’

  ‘No one’s read them since I moved in.’ Worried brown eyes gazed across at Samantha. ‘I simply can’t believe the phones have gone,’ she whispered, in a frightened little voice. �
��How can they have just vanished like that?’

  ‘It’s not ghosts,’ Samantha said wryly. ‘Someone’s been in the house and taken the things.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Grace Fairchild studied the notes she’d scribbled on the programme. State reception, Bolshoi Ballet, two formal dinners, tour of Saint Basil’s, visit to the Tretyakov Gallery: three days, three functions per day, so at least six different outfits, plus a spare, at least one spare, perhaps she should pack two. And something smart to travel in; something that wouldn’t crease. She didn’t want to look a crumpled mess when she stepped off the plane.

  She was hungry. God, she was hungry. She’d starved herself for two months, lost more than twelve pounds, but she could get into her clothes again; no tight zips, no bulges. She could even get into that black Valentino cocktail dress she’d worn in Paris a couple of years ago. She took the hanger from the rail, held the garment in front of her skirt and jumper and studied her reflection in the mirror behind the wardrobe door. The flouncy hem was a bit frivolous, a bit too high above the knee, but it fitted like a glove, brought out the creamy paleness of her skin, made her look years younger.

  Grace flicked a wave of auburn hair from her cheek and hung the dress amongst the items she’d selected for Tuesday. She’d wear it when they visited the Tretyakov Gallery, put a gleam in the Minister of Culture’s eye, that heavy thick-set man – what was his name – Andrei Monya, or was it Malkin? She must brush up on names during the flight. She ticked off items on her wardrobe list. Monday was covered, so was Tuesday, but there was nothing on the programme for the morning of Wednesday. Better check with Alexander.

  She left the bedroom and trotted down the creaking stairway. Everything seemed to creak and sag in their old farmhouse. Sometimes she wished they’d bought one of those big new places just outside the village: they’d been building them when they came, more than a decade ago. Don’t start brooding about the house, you’ll be enjoying yourself in Moscow next week, she admonished herself. Her spirits lifted. She was really looking forward to the trip. These little jollies were her reward for enduring the tedium and boredom, not to mention the loneliness, of life in Alexander’s dreary rural constituency; what he called his safe seat.